Change has come to America

What a day.

I could start with some lame-arse quip about me being late with this post, you know, today is the fifth and the whole point of the week of the triangle of happiness was that an election, a birthday and a ready-set-go at the horsie track came together on the fourth.

You could say in one sense I'm late, but if I was in, say, Alaska, it would be 11.30pm on the fourth, so technically it's all still good, thanks entirely to the kindness of the international date line and the fact our planet revolves around the sun, etc.

Or if we wanted to start with the horsie point of the triangle I could ask, dear readers, exactly why Bart Cummings's hursuit eye-shades have been referred to as "magical twirling eyebrows".

Or I could ask why jockeys always sound like shrinky dinky bogans when they're interviewed: "Geez, he's the master, Bart Cummings."

To move around to the birthday point of the triangle I could ask if I look any different today from yesterday, when I was a lot younger, much sweeter and definitely more naive.

Or, moving on to the election, I could (it being late and me being tired) just type out some Dad-style* US presidential jokes (A redneck calls up the White House and tells the receptionist: "I’d like to become the next President of the United States.” The receptionist: "What are you, an idiot?" Redneck: "Why, is it required?" Guffaw guffaw).

But I think we all know today (well, the fourth) was about Obama and the fact that we potentially, hopefully, have a very different world ahead of us. Sure it's early days but it's gotta be better than yesterday (well, the third).

All in all, not too shabby a day really. Not too shabby at all.

* Dad, please note this is a generic term for naff, groan-worthy jokes and in no way reflects the quality of your own jokes, which are excellent.

A horse by any other name

As I was bloggishly AWOL yesterday I missed a day of my week dedicated to the triangle of happiness formed when a birthday, a presidential election and a horse race reach out and hold hands.

So to make up for it, I'm bringing hands and hoofs together today for some equine-leaning, birthday-related analysis. Giddy-up.

On our day of birth (or hopefully not too long after) we all receive a name from some parental-type persons that determines how much we're bullied at school, what our starting salary will be, and whether we'll have hursuit toes.

Some names are sensible names, like Peter, Paul and Mary, others may lead us to be mistaken for teen swimwear brands, like Heavenly Harani Tiger Lily, while some are just down-right confusing, like Celery.

Similarly, horses must negotiate the minefield of names that their non-species-aligned owners lead them blinkered into.

There are sensible horse names, like Flame or Flicker, names that sound like painful and itchy equine medical conditions like Bucephalus, and others, yep, that are down-right confusing, like Shergar's Missing Foot.

So today's funtime activity is to pick which of the following names were given to human and which to equine ankle-biters:

1. Bebba
2. Vecta
3. Ordric
4. Navigator
5. Narqwell

How did you go? If you said all were kids' names you're 100% correct. That's right, some mean buggers out there looked into the sweet, perfect face of their sweet, perfect baby and said in hushed tones to each other, "s/he looks like a Narqwell".

Frankly I'd rather be called Seabiscuit.

Electoral pumpkins

Pumpkin patterns courtesy of the good people at Associated Press, via The Post Family.

Yesterday we opened our three-pocketed goody bag of fun with birthdays so today we move on to US presidential election things. Ooh ooh be still my beating fun-stick.

How convenient that the US election is only a few days after Halloween. It means our pumpkins, neatly carved out with Obama's or McCain's faces (as above; or, bizarrely, elephants and donkeys with stars and stripes?*) will still be in good form for our election parties, glowly warmly on our front porches, illuminating the gentle and magnanimous or cold and capitalistic hearts within.**

But to demonstrate how balanced and fair I'm being on this election, I'd like to list, in a totally unbiased fashion, some points about Obama and Palin (sure she's running for Vice Pres but what the hey) to help inform the debate:

Obama loves kittens, his family, walks on the beach, social decency, world peace, saving whales, defending the under-dog, equal opportunity, fluffy toys.

Palin loves shooting kittens.

So as my unbiased analysis suggests, Obama is on the winning side, but this is of little practical use since I'm not an American and thus not allowed to vote in their elections. I'll just look on from the side-lines as I carve out Australian-centric images into my antipodean pumpkins.


* Does anyone know what the sticky is with elephants and donkeys? I always thought the eagle was the big cheese in the US, but perhaps the elephant and donkey are on the coat of arms? Does America have a coat of arms? How much less could I know about the States? How many questions could I ask in this one asterix, eh?

** Sound the Extreme Prejudice Alarm!